Infertility is not a new problem.Couples throughout history have experienced the physical and emotional pain of being unable to have a child. Little help was available, largely due to a lack of knowledge about the human body and the reproductive system. For many, the only sources of information were myths and old wives' tales. Thus, couples wanting children turned to folk remedies and magic potions. Not surprisingly, they met with limited success. For centuries the only options for infertile couples were to remain childless, ask someone else to bear a child for them, or-if the man was sterile-find another man to father a child.

The first significant development in reproductive medicine was artificial insemination-that is, introducing a man's sperm into a woman without having sexual intercourse-although early experiments in humans did not begin...